Bitcoin Mining Pool Comparison 2026

How to read this table

This comparison covers eight major Bitcoin mining pools as of April 2026. The table is static — pool policies change, fees get renegotiated, and Stratum V2 rollouts are ongoing. Use this as a starting point, then verify current terms directly with each pool before connecting your hardware.

The decentralization score (0–3) is a quick composite: one point each for Stratum V2 support, custom block template support, and a no-KYC policy. A pool scoring 3/3 gives miners the most autonomy over what they mine and how they get paid. A pool scoring 0/3 gives the pool operator full control.

Payout schemes explained

FPPS — Full Pay Per Share

FPPS pays miners a fixed amount for every valid share submitted, regardless of whether the pool actually finds a block. The pool absorbs the variance. You receive both the block subsidy portion and an estimated transaction fee portion for every share. The pool earns its profit on the spread between the theoretical average and what it actually collects.

Who it suits: Miners who want predictable, steady income and don’t want to think about luck. Most large industrial operations prefer FPPS because the income stream is predictable enough to model in spreadsheets.

Caution: Because the pool bears all risk, they are strongly incentivized to find blocks efficiently. That concentration of economic power tends to push miners toward the largest FPPS pools, reinforcing centralization.

PPS+ — Pay Per Share Plus

PPS+ is a hybrid. The block subsidy is paid on a strict per-share basis (like FPPS), while transaction fees are shared proportionally among the miners who were active when the block was found (like PPLNS). This gives you the predictability of PPS for the subsidy component while letting you capture more of the fee upside during high-fee periods — without taking on full subsidy variance.

PPLNS — Pay Per Last N Shares

PPLNS pays out transaction fees (and sometimes part of the subsidy) only when a block is actually found, proportional to the shares you contributed in the window leading up to that block. If you join a pool right before a lucky block, you earn little. If you contribute steadily over a dry spell, you earn a larger fraction of the next block’s fees.

Who it suits: Miners committed to a single pool long-term. PPLNS rewards loyalty and punishes pool-hopping, because your historical share window counts.

Score — Braiins’ time-weighted PPLNS

Braiins Pool uses a “score” system that weights shares by how recently they were submitted. Older shares decay in value exponentially. This discourages pool-hopping more effectively than pure PPLNS while still rewarding long-term participants. It’s essentially PPLNS with a time-decay factor applied to the window.

TIDES — Transparent Index of Distinct Extended Shares (OCEAN)

TIDES is OCEAN’s innovation: a fully auditable PPLNS variant where every miner can independently verify their expected payout before the block is even found. OCEAN publishes the share accounting in near real time. There is no trusted intermediary — you can verify that the pool isn’t skimming. Combined with OCEAN’s full transaction-selection transparency (miners build their own block templates), TIDES represents the most trust-minimized pool model currently in production.

Solo

Solo CKpool passes the entire block reward directly to the miner who finds it, taking a small fee (2%) as a service charge. You could wait months or years between payouts, but when you find a block, you keep nearly everything. This is not viable for small miners but can be attractive for large individual operations that prefer guaranteed attribution.

Why Stratum V2 and custom templates matter

The original Stratum protocol (V1) was designed for efficiency, not decentralization. In V1, the pool constructs the block template — it selects which transactions to include, in what order, and with what coinbase. Miners are just hashing machines that have no say in what they’re building.

Stratum V2 (BIP 320 and related specs) reverses this. In the sub-protocol that supports custom work (called “Job Declaration”), miners negotiate transaction sets directly. Each miner’s node selects transactions from its local mempool, constructs a candidate block, and submits that template to the pool. The pool’s job narrows to share accounting and block submission; it no longer controls transaction selection.

This matters for two reasons:

1. Censorship resistance. If a pool decides not to include certain transactions — for regulatory, political, or economic reasons — individual miners using Stratum V2 with custom templates can override that policy. Coordinated censorship becomes much harder.

2. Decentralization of power. Currently, a handful of pools select transactions for the vast majority of Bitcoin’s hashrate. If any of those pools collude with a government or corporation, they could exclude valid transactions at scale. Custom templates distribute that decision to individual miners.

Luxor and Braiins Pool support Stratum V2 with some custom template capability. OCEAN was designed from the ground up around this model and is the most fully realized example in production.

KYC tradeoffs

Know Your Customer (KYC) requirements exist on a spectrum across pools. Some pools have no identity requirements at all — you point your miner at a stratum endpoint, provide a Bitcoin address, and receive payouts. Others require email verification for payouts. A small number require full identity documents.

The practical concern for a privacy-oriented miner is that pooled mining payouts create a linkable transaction graph. If the pool knows your identity and your payout address, that information can be subpoenaed, leaked, or sold. No-KYC pools that pay directly to Bitcoin addresses give miners more privacy, but they don’t insulate you from on-chain analysis — coinjoin or lightning payouts would be needed for that.

Braiins Pool, OCEAN, and Solo CKpool require no identity for mining or payouts. Foundry USA and Luxor require full KYC, reflecting their US regulatory posture. AntPool, F2Pool, and ViaBTC require identity verification for payouts above certain thresholds.

Foundry’s dominance: a centralization concern

As of 2026, Foundry USA consistently controls between 25–35% of Bitcoin’s global hashrate, making it the single largest pool by a substantial margin. This level of concentration creates systemic risk. A single legal order, regulatory seizure, or infrastructure failure affecting Foundry could disrupt a significant fraction of block production for hours or days.

Foundry does not support Stratum V2 with custom templates, which means the company has unilateral transaction selection authority over whatever fraction of the network mines through its pool. Even if Foundry exercises this authority responsibly, the technical capability exists and creates a potential attack surface.

Distributing hashrate across smaller pools — particularly decentralization-friendly ones like OCEAN or Braiins Pool — is the best mitigation miners can make individually. Solo mining, while economically impractical for most, is the most decentralization-maximizing choice at the extreme.

How to use this comparison

Use the filter chips to narrow by specific properties. If your primary concern is censorship resistance and sovereignty, filter by “Decentralization-friendly” to see pools that allow custom block templates. If you prefer the simplest possible setup with no identity requirements, filter by “No KYC only.” Stratum V2 filtering shows pools that have at least begun the transition to the newer protocol.

All data in this table reflects publicly known pool policies as of April 2026. Pool terms, fees, and feature support can change without notice — always confirm with the pool’s current documentation before connecting your hashrate.